What Enceladus's plume is made of

Where it stands as of Oct 5, 2026

Cassini detected 961 salt-rich ice grains from Enceladus with very different chemistry from one another. Lab freezing experiments show that slow-cooling droplets sort their salts, so a single ocean can produce many kinds of grain. How closely the lab process matches what happens in the moon's vents is not yet established.